I am trying to get rid of dropping frames and think the write speed/fragmentation of the HDD is causing (part?) the problem! Can anyone explain how to "reserve" a portion of HDD and dedicate it to Ulead Video Studio 8 for saving the captured file? I would like to try this one before I go for a (new) separate drive only for capturing. I have tried to do that on (not sure if proper) File>Properties>Preview tab by setting the limit of used HDD, but it seems that the settings are not saved when I return afterwards.
Thanx in advance!

You would have to set the partitions at an operating system level first. You will be pleased to know that there are others on these forums who are far more techncially minded than me who can offer good advice or advise of software tools that will allow you to create partitions on the fly.

Having said that a physical partition will always perform better than a logical partition, so I would suggest you save up your pennies and get that second hard drive. Meantime derfrag your existing hard disk.

Good luck

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IBM A51p with 160Gb Boot Disk, 160Gb external Firewire Disk, 2Gb Memory and a super duper sound card, 17\" TFT Monitor etc etc etc
Sony TRV33e : Sony TRV310e : Canon XM2
ULead products mostly including Mediastudio Pro (V8.0), Video Studio 8, Movie Factory 2.0, Premiere Elements

Remember, there is always more to learn than there is to teach.

Thanx for the replay!
Meanwhile I have put an older HDD (Quantum 7200, without cash ..., I dont remember now the exact typeand specs), formatted it, and ... the results were even worse :( I didn't have enough time to test different capturing settings, but comparing to the result with the system drive it was quite bad!
Best regards,
jolobg

first thing first, what's the spec of your system? What are you capturing from?

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AMD Athlon 1700 (@2200mhz from 1466 sod the noise!) - 768mb pc3200 - 200GB Maxtor - Pioneer 106 - GF4 Ti4200 - twinhan/visionplus pci dvb-t - random pci analogue tv tuner - A7v600-x (to replace the a7n8x-d that died...) - random 17\" CRT
Sony STR-DE425 & Eltax c205s;
xBox w/20GB HDD- executer 2.3b;
xBox - standard;
Konica/Minolta dimage z10 w/2x512mb SD;
iRiver h340;
A silly amount of Cat-5 and usb cables

I had started another thread relating to my problem, please read more in http://www.videoforums.co.uk/ftopic2621.html!
My equipment:
AMD AthlonXP 2600+ (@1.916 GHz)
A7N8X-E Deluxe s,A nForce2,Ultra,DDR400 DCh,6ch,LAN,SATA,1394,8x
GV-R925128VH VIVO using as a capture card, complex video-in
Samsung DDR 512 MB 400Mhz
Seagate 160 GB 7200 rpm, ATA V, 8 MB cache

Software for capturing:
Ulead Video Studio 8

Camcorder:
Sony, analog
==============================================
When capturing in MPEG2 DVD mode 720x576, 25 fps, 8000 kb/sec, speed vs quality 50% or 60%, I checked the CPU usage and it was 30 to 60 % in sceenes where the cmaera is relatively still and it was full 100% when the camera move quick! I have enablad the DMA for both HDD's and write to cash (for the Seagate one). Also I don't have any antivirus nor other programs running at the same time.. What could be wrong with the system configuration...?
Best regards,
jolobg

i never capture to mpeg-2, so i dunno what kinda strain that puts on your processor. You've got a fast-ish system, so why not try doing what i do for analogue capping:

get IUvcr.
Get the panasonic DV codec.
Get the XviD codec.
Get the Lame ACM codec.

capture with IUvcd to either DV-spec avi, or xvid+lame.

You should be able to do a 720*576 cap, one pass variable bitrate with xvid+mp3 no probs, at such high bitrates that it won't matter all that much that you're using lossy codecs.

i get very good results capping to xvid, although it's not regarded as "the right thing to do". I don't care, the file sizes are small, and it's easy to edit.

__________________
AMD Athlon 1700 (@2200mhz from 1466 sod the noise!) - 768mb pc3200 - 200GB Maxtor - Pioneer 106 - GF4 Ti4200 - twinhan/visionplus pci dvb-t - random pci analogue tv tuner - A7v600-x (to replace the a7n8x-d that died...) - random 17\" CRT
Sony STR-DE425 & Eltax c205s;
xBox w/20GB HDD- executer 2.3b;
xBox - standard;
Konica/Minolta dimage z10 w/2x512mb SD;
iRiver h340;
A silly amount of Cat-5 and usb cables

I'd like to not convert twice the video, thus putting it to DVD, that's why I stick to mpeg-2. But, it may come to do as you suggest.
Thanx and best regards,
jolobg

You have pretty much answered the question yourself. When you pan the camera the compressor codec is asking too much from your system and it cannot keep up - causing you frame dropouts. The only real solution is to capture to normal DV then convert - a pain i know. The other option is to install more memory, if your computer is using the HDD for any memory paging this will really slow access times down and needlessly slow the PC. Fit another 512. In most cases you should beable to disable HDD virtual memory . If you want to be certian install 2gb ram, I have done this and my virtual ram on the HDD has been off for months with no problems. It really makes a difference.

Ed

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First B/W semi pro music video in the bag! More to come.
Dual Athlon MP 2800+ 2 Gig DDR Ram Pinnacle Edition V6.1 pro 2xXL1s

Thanx for the suggestion!
Forgive my ignorance, but should there be any difference between uncompressed AVI and DV (I cannot check it right now...) when capturing from analog source? Because, capturing to uncompressed AVI didn't really make a difference - only the processor load was less (not full 100% when panning the camera).

Best regards,
jolobg

I believe the DV codec uses a compression ration of 5:1 (this is probably wrong) - essentiallu DV is compressed while uncompressed is, well, uncompressed

Probably best to use a non-lossy codec such as huffy if you don;t want to use the above.

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